The real crisis for American democracy is our cowardly inability to tax the rich

[Nevilledog]

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Yes, our elections and voting rights are now under attack, but what does it say about the health of U.S. democracy when Bezos, Buffett, Musk, etc., pay little or no taxes?

Our fear of taxing the rich is threatening the American Experiment. My new column

The real crisis for American democracy is our cowardly inability to tax the rich | Will Bunch
A leak of IRS records shows the super-rich like Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett pay hardly any taxes. Put a fork in America if we don't do something.
inquirer.com
7:30 AM · Jun 27, 2021

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/bezos-musk-buffett-dont-pay-any-taxes-20210627.html

In 2018 — after his then-planetary-record net worth had hit $131 billion, yet right before the pandemic that would make his Amazon the alpha and omega of online shopping for so many American families — Jeff Bezos admitted he had so much money the only thing he could think to do with it was to blast himself into space. He told a reporter that year: “The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel ...”

“That is basically it.”

Really, Jeff? I’m thinking that some of America’s schoolkids — you know, the ones in classrooms where students don’t have the right textbooks but they do have asbestos or lead in the fountain water — might have a few ideas on deployment. In fact, they might also have some idea for multibillionaire investor Warren Buffett, who famously complained that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he does, and then proved it by watching his wealth grow by more than $24 billion (with a “B”) in the mid-2010s but only paid $23.7 million (with an “M”) in federal taxes, or just a 0.1% rate.

Then there’s the case of Tesla and SpaceX mogul Elon Musk, whose stocks exploded despite a global pandemic and its overlapping recession to make him currently the world’s richest man, even with the fact that — according to an unconvincing Insider profile — “he doesn’t care about money.” Perhaps, but either he or his accountant cared enough in 2018 to file a return showing that Musk owed zero federal income taxes.

To paraphrase Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the rich are very different than you and me — they pay a much lower rate of taxes. OK, you probably already had a hunch this was the case, but this month a major article from ProPublica based on leaked IRS documents finally proved it. The tax records from 25 of the wealthiest Americans found the real tax rate on their expanding wealth was just 3.4%, while the typical family paid 14% of its income to the IRS.

*snip*

[Reader Rabbit]

1. Is it cowardice, though?

Or is it greed and opportunism? A lot of elected officials certainly benefit financially from their refusal to tax the rich.

[SoonerPride]

2. Cowardly? Try corrupt.

The rich bought the Congress and they do as they’re told.

[Dustlawyer]

8. And they bought the media with their advertising.

Big powerful companies tell the media which stories to tun and which to kill. How did the McDonald’s coffee case get it so wrong, oh yea, the networks all presented it as a frivolous case despite a trials work of public evidence. Who was one of the biggest advertisers at the time, Mikey D’s, that’s who.

[smirkymonkey]

10. +1000

[marble falls]

3. Why I don't get the thinking of all those middle and lower class 45 supporters. They vote ...

... against their own interests.

[LastDemocratInSC]

6. That's true.

But they hate certain groups of people and they vote for candidates who also hate those groups. That's sufficient for them.

[nuxvomica]

9. According to Carlo Cipolla, it's hard to "get" the stupid

In The Basic Laws of Stupidity, he defines the stupid as those who act against everyone's interest even their own. Because their behavior is so incomprehensible to the rational human, we underestimate how many there are of these noodles. Sure, we can come up with possible reasons for their devotion to Old Whack Donald, all of them related to negative emotional states, but it's still a mindset we can't fathom completely and maybe we don't want to. We tend toward discourse in the realm of ideas and with these bacciagalupes it's all about impulse.

[multigraincracker]

4. They have more than enough.

Now they are looking for more distance between the poorest and the richest. They are looking for the power of Gods.

[CrispyQ]

5. Michael Moore used to state how much money it would take to provide the world with potable water.

I don't recall the figure but I do remember thinking, "That's hardly anything!" and being appalled that we don't do it.

[Bayard]

7. The Republican mantra

Dems want to raise taxes! Doesn't matter that it wouldn't apply to 99% of Americans.

We have to change the messaging. Polls show when asked directly about a wealth tax, people are enthusiastically for it.